BibleDriven » Culture

Bumper sticker

Pastor Spencer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:08:00 +0000

I was just on the way from the church over to my little “reserved” table at Starbucks for an afternoon of java and jotting some notes on the history of Christian thought when I noticed, on the car in front of me, this remarkable “thought”—Jesus is coming … look busy!

Aaauuugghhhhhh!! Now, if I’m not completely mistaken, that’s a quote from George Carlin—not really the best source of theological reflection, you know. And I don’t know if the little lady driving this car was a Carlin fan (if so, I would never have guessed it), or whether perhaps she thought that this “thought” had some merit, but its message is fundamentally unbiblical and the attitude behind it dismissive and dangerous.

Here’s what I mean. Jesus is coming … that’s absolutely true. God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” by this man whom he’s appointed, and of this he has “provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17.31). The appeal that flows from that truth, though, is not “Look busy!” but “Repent!” The Judge of all the earth will not be fooled by “looks.” Oh no! “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ …” (2 Corinthians 5.10), and the word Paul uses there for “appear” is actually passive voice, and means “be made known, be revealed, be brought to light, be seen through,” i.e. for who we really are. “Looking busy” when Jesus comes won’t make any difference. What’s the hope of the hypocrite—the one who pretends to be other than what he or she is—when Jesus comes? None!

Jesus is coming! Repent! Be faithful unto death! Hold fast to our confession and to the hope set before us! Don’t grow weary in doing good! “We must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12.1-2).

But what we must not do is just try to “look busy”!

Finally … some vindication

Pastor Spencer — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:02:53 +0000

Please read the article entitled “The day the circus came to church” written by Pastor Don Hattaway (Tabernacle Baptist Church, Cartersville) and appearing in The Christian Index (July 30, 2009). In case there’s not a copy of The Christian Index at hand, the article can be read online HERE. More and more voices are beginning to cry in this ecclesiastical wilderness, and my hope is that the Lord is about to do great and mighty things for his church in our place and time. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts …” (Hebrews 3:15; 4:7).

One Name Comes to Mind …

Pastor Spencer — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:33:12 +0000

Back on Christmas Eve, I stopped at one of the local coffee shops (imagine that) for a good cup o’ joe and to read a while. When I went in I was greeted by a young man I had met there before … and he looked serious, intent, concerned. He leaned over and said, “We still need to believe.” And I said, “Yes we do!” He then told me that he’d been thinking that morning about the state of things—the world, our nation, the economy, people’s lives—and he was burdened about it all and about the fact that so much skepticism and pessimism and fear of the future and all that kind of stuff was what occupied people’s minds every day. So, he said, he wanted to make a difference, to change the way people think about life, to help them through trouble and trial and sorrow. And to that end, he’d sat down that very morning and written a reflection, an exhortation, on “Why We Should Still Believe.”

He gave me a copy. Then he gave me a lot of copies and asked me to give them to folks at church if we had a Christmas Eve service. I took them and told him I’d give it a look. He went on about his “work” and I grabbed my coffee and sat down in the corner at a table, and started to read:

“The world today has become complicated and full of negativity,” he wrote. “You look at the headlines on the newspapers and the front page is consumed with financial scandal and war.” I couldn’t argue there. Then he wrote, “Realizing this I start to think about what is missing, what is strong enough for us to go back to a time of simple innocence.” I was hopeful. He went on, “As my mind races looking for an answer, one name comes to mind, Santa Claus.” I nearly fell out of my chair. His conclusion? “The world today needs Santa Claus more than ever … On this Christmas I have one wish, that we all start to believe in Santa Claus again.”

And in that instant, my heart was broken, not just for him but for a whole culture and a world so desperately empty, rudderless and adrift that people look for hope and help in a fable they know to be false, grabbing for anything they think will help keep their heads above water, longing for some lost innocence, some moment of inspiration, some little anticipation for a better world. I looked around for him, but he was gone. I wanted to say, “Yes, we do still need to believe, and there is a Name that comes to mind, but it’s not Santa Claus. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God the Son born under the Law to redeem us from the Law, Redeemer, Mediator, the One that Christmas celebration is all about, the only One who has done something about all that’s wrong in our world, who is taking all who believe in him not back to innocence but on to holiness and glory, who has promised not just a better world, but a new heaven and earth! In him we have life, in him we have hope, in him we find joy, in him we’re given peace that passes understanding and hope here and hereafter.”

And that’s no fable!

Where are we going … and who’s driving?

Pastor Spencer — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:45:09 +0000

I read somewhere recently, “Evangelicalism is dying for the discovery of the value of good theology, while managerial pragmatism is all but killing the soul of our enterprise.” It stopped me dead in my reading tracks. The unnameable distraction, that gnawing anxiety that something wasn’t quite right, suddenly stood before me bald-faced. It’s so easy to slip over into “ad-ministering” in the place of “ministering,” and to think (or at least assume) that the cause of church and Kingdom is won on the field of management technique and organizational structure. Not to say, mind you, that good management and proper organization are unimportant and can be ignored. But there is no secret formula to the life and ministry of the church, as if finding and wording a perfect mission statement, and then crafting a compelling vision statement, and then devising a great strategy is necessarily going to accomplish our well-documented goals within our time-bound schedule.

I’m just a little uncomfortable with that. It’s too mechanical, too mathematical. Besides, all of our “mission/vision/strategy/purpose-driven” stuff can easily mask a thorough-going pragmatism that is far removed from the biblical emphases of faithfulness, love, service, patience, suffering, and perseverance. I, for one, want to slow the “drive” down a bit and reconsider the destination.